{"id":6248,"date":"2009-02-02T02:13:57","date_gmt":"2009-02-02T07:13:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/?p=6248"},"modified":"2010-12-23T03:02:13","modified_gmt":"2010-12-23T08:02:13","slug":"women-as-tools-of-economic-development","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/2009\/02\/02\/women-as-tools-of-economic-development\/","title":{"rendered":"Women as Tools of Economic Development"},"content":{"rendered":"

In From Motherhood to Citizenship<\/em><\/a>, Nitza Berkovich traces\u00a0a global shift.\u00a0 Sometime during the 20th century, nation-states became convinced that women could boost national economies and foster development.\u00a0 Accordingly, states began thinking of their women as potential productive<\/em> workers instead of reproductive<\/em> mothers.\u00a0 It was this economic argument, not necessarily a feminist one, that led to women’s incorporation into the public sphere as citizens (workers, voters, etc).<\/p>\n

I was reminded of Berkovitch’s book by a short video sent in by Fran.\u00a0 The video, produced by a non-profit called Girl Effect<\/a>*, argues that if you get girls into school and give them cows, the world will be a better place.\u00a0 As Fran puts it:\u00a0 “Apparently, girls are only worth supporting if they improve the economy!” Here is an image from the website:<\/p>\n

\"girleffect_01\"<\/p>\n

“Girl Effect” is defined as:<\/p>\n

The powerful social and economic change brought about when girls have the opportunity to participate in their society.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The logic is not that girls deserve<\/em> education or the opportunity to sustain their livelihoods (a feminist argument); the logic is that we should invest in girls because it is good for the world (a global improvement or humanist argument or something).\u00a0 I’m not arguing that the former is better or worse than the latter, only pointing out that it’s interesting that feminist initiatives (helping girls) can be supported with non-feminist logics.<\/p>\n

The video:<\/p>\n

<\/param><\/param><\/param><\/object><\/p>\n

*\u00a0 As an aside, I always think it’s interesting when and how people choose to use the word “girl” as opposed to “woman.”\u00a0 In this case, I suspect the activists think girls are more sympathetic than women.\u00a0 Kids always pull at the heart<\/span> purse strings moreso than adults.\u00a0 I suppose this is because we ascribe to children a sort of innocence.\u00a0 That, in itself (though socially constructed), doesn’t seem troublesome… but, if we can give the benefit of the doubt, we can also take it away.\u00a0 I always wonder, for example:\u00a0When do boys growing up in poverty transition from innocent victims of circumstance to potential criminals?\u00a0 When do their sisters transition to welfare queens?\u00a0 When do we decide to retract our generous offering of benevolence and replace it with malevolence?\u00a0 These are just things I wonder.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In From Motherhood to Citizenship, Nitza Berkovich traces\u00a0a global shift.\u00a0 Sometime during the 20th century, nation-states became convinced that women could boost national economies and foster development.\u00a0 Accordingly, states began thinking of their women as potential productive workers instead of reproductive mothers.\u00a0 It was this economic argument, not necessarily a feminist one, that led to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":51,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[23384,36,55,2105,2102,64,253],"class_list":["post-6248","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-social-construction-discourselanguage","tag-economics","tag-gender","tag-gender-economics","tag-gender-history","tag-globalization","tag-history"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6248","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/51"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6248"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6248\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":31268,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6248\/revisions\/31268"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6248"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6248"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6248"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}